Cold Blows the Wind
Cold Blows the Wind by Catherine Meyrick is an atmospheric historical set in the wilds of late 19th-century Tasmania. The characters and story are based loosely on the author’s great-grandparents, with extraordinary facts deftly woven together with the daily minutiae of living in a former British penal colony.
It is 1878, and Meyrick’s great-grandmother, Sarah Ellen Thompson, is the unwed mother of a son when the novel opens. She lives in Hobart Town, the capital of Tasmania, and is a member of the tight-knit Thompson clan, a delightful group of rapscallions known for their hard-living ways. She dreams of a proper man to love, and when she meets Harry Woods, newly arrived in town and willing to overlook her dubious reputation, Ellen believes her future is secured. Love proves to be a complicated proposition when Harry’s past catches up to him. Women have the hardest lot in Tasmania, a fact exemplified by the events unfolding in Ellen’s life. She is repeatedly betrayed by the men in her life; it is heartbreaking to know that this was the reality endured by many women of this period. Yet Ellen emerges triumphant in the end, rewarded by her refusal to play the victim.
Meyrick has conceived a well-researched rendering of the conditions endured by the settlers of Tasmania. Hobart Town and the wider Tasmanian wilderness are vividly depicted, and reminiscent of the American West, also being settled during this period. The novel’s characters are well-drawn and sympathetic despite their foibles. At times, the pace of the novel slows to a crawl with descriptions of daily events; a thorough editing would have introduced the climax sooner and perhaps left space for more interesting events. Nonetheless, readers of both historical and women’s fiction will find much to enjoy in Cold Blows the Wind.
